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Under Alabama law, a person can be charged with capital murder, and face the death penalty, for killing two or more people in the same incident.

Prosecutors said Andy Harvey and Jerry DuBoise, who were playing pool together at the lounge in the early morning hours, were shot and beaten with a gun outside the bar. Police have said the shooting was recorded on a surveillance camera.

Bohannon had been released from jail on Dec. 13, two days after the shooting, on a $250,000 bail set by District Judge George Hardesty.

This morning, District Judge Charlie McKnight denied bail on the upgraded charges.

Defense attorney Bob Clark said the District Attorney’s Office only pursued capital murder in an effort to get a new judge and have Bohannon denied bail.

The packed courtroom was silent on Monday as everyone watched various video screens as the final moments of two mens' lives played out in the parking lot of an Eight Mile bar in Dec. 2010.

In less three minutes, after appearing to have a heated exchange with a third man, Jerry Dwayne Bohannon, the victims – 24-year-old Jerry “Little Jerry” Duboise Jr. and Anthony “Andy” Harvey, 45 – were lying dead of gunshot wounds outside the Paradise Lounge on Hwy. 45.

Bohannon is charged with the capital murder of each man, and on the first day of his trial, prosecutors showed the jury surveillance footage taken the night of Dec. 11.

It showed Duboise and Harvey running from Bohannon, who was carrying a gun. And although the actual shooting appeared to have occurred off-screen, the victims’ families became very emotional as the footage was played several times from several different angles.

Throughout the day, witnesses described the night of Dec. 10 and the following morning, ending just after 7:30 a.m., when the two were killed. Several of their friends testified about how the two were regulars at the lounge, and shot pool at the bar almost nightly.

No one remembered seeing Bohannon, Duboise and Harvey together before they went outside the bar in the morning light. But just about everyone remembered what happened next, and many watched the same footage as what those in the courtroom on Monday saw, only in real time as it happened from a television monitor set up inside the bar.

In the footage, Duboise is seen pushing Bohannon in the chest before walking away with Harvey. After a brief pause, the defendant removes a pistol from his back waistband and pursues the two around the corner of the building. Other angles of the surveillance video subsequently show the victims running from Bohannon in multiple directions before being shot out of the frame.

In one of many 911 emergency call recordings played for the jury on Monday, Robert “Mike” Hoss is heard speaking to the operator from the parking lot, where the crimes occurred.

“He’s just shooting these people like it ain’t nothing,” Hoss said in the recording.

Victims were not only shot

In her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips told the jury that the injuries to the victims didn’t end when they were shot, and that Bohannon actually broke the .357 pistol he was carrying by beating them after they went down.

“As Little Jerry lay dying on the ground, the defendant beat him and stomped him over and over,” Phillips said.

On the 911 call, Hoss is heard angrily referring to this.

“Oh my God, look at him,” Hoss said to the operator. “How can he beat someone in the face with a gun after he just shot him?

“Why’s he doing this?”

At the end of Hoss’s call, as police arrive on the scene, several voices can be heard over the phone line, screaming at police to shoot Bohannon, who was standing in the parking lot after the homicides occurred.

While describing his crime-scene photographs of the victims lying outside the Paradise Lounge, Cpl. Charles Bailey – an investigator with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office – said they both appeared to have gunshot wounds to the chest, as well as severe trauma to their faces. While viewing the photograph of Duboise, Bailey pointed out that several of his teeth had been “knocked out or loosened.”

Was meth a factor?

Starting with his opening statement, defense attorney Bob Clark focused on what he claimed was a “large amount” of methamphetamine in Duboise and Harvey’s blood. And although the forensic medical examiner did not testify during the first day of the trial, two witnesses who said they were friends of the victims admitted to ingesting the drug with the two men in the past.

“We all used methamphetamine at the time,” said Sharon Thompson, a Paradise employee who drove to the bar with Duboise and Harvey the night before they were killed.

Like Thompson, the bartender on duty that night, Melissa Weaver, wept for her friends on the stand. She also admitted to selling methamphetamine and using it with the victims “on numerous occasions.”

Investigator Bailey testified that a magnetic box was found in Duboise’s pocket. In it were two small plastic bags filled with a “semi-white, clear substance” he said looked to be consistent with methamphetamine.

From the stand, Weaver and Thompson both testified that, earlier in the night, Bohannon approached each of them separately, asking to procure as much as an ounce of meth.

Both said they told the defendant no.

“I see him take his last breath.”
Tears were flowing from the witness stand, as well as the greater courtroom, throughout the trial's first day.
During her testimony, Weaver was extremely emotional as she described knowing Harvey "her whole life," having grown up across the street from him, and Duboise "a few years."

"I loved them," she said. "They were my friends."

Weaver testified that, after hearing "a loud bang," she rushed out into the parking lot with several bar patrons, where she saw the victims lying on the ground and Bohannon standing over them.

"I was begging him to stop," Weaver said.

Also in the group who went outside to see what happened was Thompson, who said she cried out for Duboise as he lay on the ground, bleeding.

Describing what happened next, she said, “I see him take his last breath.”
Day Two of the trial begins Tuesday morning.

Capital murder trial nears close as details of shootout and drug use emerge

Tuesday’s continuation of the Jerry Dwayne Bohannon capital murder trial contained lots of forensic evidence, and several more pieces of a puzzle that left two men dead in the morning hours of Dec. 11, 2010.

Bohannon is charged with two counts of capital murder for killing 24-year-old Jerry “Little Jerry” Duboise Jr. and Anthony “Andy” Harvey, 45, outside the Paradise Lounge on Hwy. 45 in Eight Mile. The three had what amounts to a shootout outside the bar just after 7:30 that morning, with Bohannon emerging unhurt and the victims lying near each other, dead of gunshot wounds and, in Harvey’s case, blunt force trauma to the head.

From the witness stand, Dr. John Krolikowski, a senior medical examiner with the Alabama Dept. of Forensic Sciences, described autopsy photographs of Harvey and Duboise’s wounds. In addition to being shot in the torso, both men also had injuries to their heads and faces, Krolikowski said.

Testimony from the first day of the trial on Monday indicated the two had been kicked and beaten with the murder weapon – a .357 pistol – by Bohannon. Harvey sustained skull fractures which contributed to his death, Krolikowski said.

During testimony from lead investigator, Det. Victor Myles, defense attorney Bob Clark pointed out that, of the things found on his client at the time of his arrest, one was a valid license to carry his firearm. Clark has maintained throughout the trial that neither Duboise or Harvey had permits for the pistols they were carrying on the night they were killed.

Surveillance photos taken from three different angles outside the bar don’t clearly show any of the three men firing weapons, but crime-scene investigators testified to finding spent casings from .22- and .32-caliber weapons at the scene.

Drug use by the three men has also been an issue throughout the trial.

On Monday, investigators testified that Duboise was found with two small bags of a powdery substance in his back pocket, and on Tuesday a forensic scientist confirmed it was approximately a half-gram of methamphetamine.

Dr. Curt Harper, a toxicologist, testified that both he and Harvey were found with possibly near-toxic amounts of methamphetamine in their system, depending on each man’s history with the drug. And although no evidence was offered as to whether the men were under the influence of the drug the night they died, two Paradise employees testified on Monday to having previously used meth with the victims.

Both also testified that, while all three were inside the bar before the incident occurred, Bohannon asked them to procure as much as an ounce of the drug for him.

Aside from the confirmation of drugs in the victims’ systems, the most compelling piece of evidence came from Myles, who testified about a spontaneous statement he said Bohannon made while being placed in a squad car en route to Mobile Metro Jail after he was arrested and brought to Prichard police headquarters.

According to Myles, Bohannon said, “He owed me money, so it should be self-defense.”

There was no indication from Myles as to who the defendant was talking about.

On a 911 call recording played for the jury on Monday, one of the witnesses outside the Paradise Lounge is heard telling the operator that after shooting Duboise, the defendant went through his pockets, possibly taking money.

Both the state and defense rested on Tuesday afternoon. Each will present its closing argument on Wednesday morning before the jury begins its deliberations. If convicted, Bohannon could face the death penalty.

Bohannon convicted of capital murder in deaths of two men after 2010 shootout outside bar

“Give God the glory!”

So said Jerry Duboise Sr. after the man accused of killing his son outside an Eight Mile bar in 2010 was convicted by a jury in Circuit Court Judge Robert Smith’s courtroom on Wednesday.

The jury found Jerry Dwayne Bohannon, a 51-year-old former construction supervisor, guilty on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Jerry “Little Jerry” Duboise Jr, 24, and 45-year-old Anthony “Andy” Harvey. The two were shot and beaten in the parking lot of the Paradise Lounge on Hwy. 45 around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 11, 2010.

After the jury’s verdict came in, Jerry Duboise Sr. said, “There’s no victory here, nobody’s won anything. There’s just justice been done for my son.

Throughout the three-day trial, attorneys for both sides argued the contents of extensive video surveillance footage of the shootout at the Paradise – all three men were armed and fired their weapons – as well as any methamphetamine use by the defendant and the victims.

On the video, captured via three different cameras outside the bar, Bohannon and Duboise Jr. can be seen in an argument which ends with Duboise pushing Bohannon before walking away with Harvey. The two friends had been shooting pool at the bar for several hours that morning.

Then, after a long pause, Bohannon is seen removing a pistol from the back waistband of his pants and pursuing the victims.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips, said that having such compelling evidence as the videotape, and eye-witness 911 emergency calls, was very helpful in prosecuting Bohannon.

"It was not just the sights but the sounds that we relied on, as well as the witnesses," Phillips said. "All of it was important."

During his closing argument, defense attorney Bob Clark said that Bohannon fired at the two in self-defense; that even though he may have drawn his weapon first, he was not pointing at the men as he ran after them, and didn’t fire until fired upon.

“If somebody shot at you, what would be your reaction?” Clark asked the jury.

“You’re in the fog of war.”

“You’re looking for survival.”

Assistant District Attorney Matt Simpson, during his closing, said that the victims shot at Bohannon only after he had cornered them around the side of the bar. And even after the men had been shot, still Bohannon kicked them and beat them in the face until his .357-caliber pistol, he said.

“At what point in that kicking and beating is he still afraid for his life?” Simpson said. “He hunted him down.”

On Tuesday, a forensic toxicologist testified that both Harvey and Duboise had high levels of methamphetamine in their blood at the time of their death. The drug played a large role in both the evidence and the lawyers’ arguments throughout the trial, as two witnesses for the prosecution testified that, hours before the shootout, Bohannon asked them both to procure up to an ounce of meth for him.

“Just because they had meth in their system doesn’t mean he had the right to kill them,” Simpson told the jury.

As the predominantly middle-aged jurors filed into the courtroom to render the verdict, several of the victims' families held hands and, afterward, shared celebratory hugs outside the courtroom.

Phillips, who was showered with gratitude from the families after the jury was excused, said earning a conviction brought out a lot of emotions, both personally and professionally.

"To see some degree of relief on their faces, it’s a good thing," she said. "We’ve developed a long relationship, I feel like I know them very well."

Mark Harvey, son of victim Andy Harvey, said he felt an immediate sense of relief after the jury's verdict was read.

But, he said, "It can't replace what's lost."

Harvey also said he would prefer that Bohannon be sentenced to death on Thursday, as opposed to life without parole, which is what the defense is requesting.

"He took two lives intentionally, so I feel like that's what he deserves," he said. "But, I'm not God."

Having been left alone in the courtroom after the verdict, Clark said the case was a very difficult one from the beginning, considering there was such compelling video evidence.

“There was nothing else I could have done,” Clark said.

The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for Bohannon, and the jury is expected to make a suggestion on his sentence on Thursday, after defense witnesses have testified.

Bohannon jury takes only a few minutes to recommend death penalty in capital murder case

By Michael Dumas

MOBILE, Alabama -- With a near-unanimous vote on Thursday, a jury recommended the death penalty for 51-year-old Jerry Dwayne Bohannon who was convicted of two counts of capital murder just 24 hours before. The jury, made up of seven men and five women – most appearing to be middle-aged – took about 16 minutes to turn in their recommendation.

The former construction supervisor was found guilty of killing “Little Jerry” Duboise Jr, 24, and 45-year-old Andy Harvey outside the Paradise Lounge in Eight Mile on Dec. 2010. The two died as a result of a shootout with Bohannon in the bar’s parking lot, which was caught, in part, on surveillance video and recounted via 911 calls from witnesses during the gunfight.

The final decision in regards to Bohannon’s fate – be it life in prison without parole or lethal injection – ultimately lies with Circuit Court Judge Robert Smith, who set Dec. 11 as the sentencing date in the case, exactly three years after the men died.

“I think it was a certain verdict,” Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips said. “These jurors sat here through three days of really intense testimony, watching some things that other people will probably never, ever experience in their lives.”

Phillips said the prosecution will ask Smith to impose the death penalty for Bohannon. On Thursday, witnesses for the prosecution testified about what Bohannon’s actions have done to their families, while the defense put forth several witnesses to speak to the character and good nature of the defendant.

“It’s devastating, it really is,” defense attorney Jason Darley said after the jury’s recommendation. “Mr. Bohannon lived a very productive life. He contributed greatly to society.

“Outside of these circumstances that led to this evening, it was completely out of character for him.”

Darley said the jury’s advisory verdict was “very difficult to accept,” and that the defense would still push for Smith to render a decision that saves Bohannon’s life, even if it is lived out in prison.

Jerry Duboise Sr., the victim’s father, said that there is some measure of peace now that the jury’s recommendation has been rendered.

“My son’s soul and everything is at rest now,” Duboise said. “He’s not dishonored and disrespected, and his integrity is not thrown away.”

For he and his family, who had been in the courtroom every minute of every day the trial went on, Duboise said there was only one thing left to do.

A judge on Thursday sentenced 51-year-old Jerry Dwayne Bohannon to death by lethal injection for killing two men outside a bar in Eight Mile in late 2010.

Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Robert Smith took less than five minutes to read the sentence with family members on both sides waiting in anticipation. Bohannon, dressed in a Mobile County Metro Jail uniform, had no visible reaction when the sentence was read.

Since it is a capital case, it will automatically be appealed.

During his trial in November, he was convicted of killing Jerry “Little Jerry” Duboise Jr, 24, and 45-year-old Anthony “Andy” Harvey, during an early-morning shootout outside the Paradise Lounge on Hwy. 45 on Dec. 11, 2010.

The trial included the testimony of several witnesses, but a key piece of evidence was video footage from three outside cameras that captured much of the incident in question. Throughout the trial, Bohannon maintained he was only defending himself, as all three men involved were armed.

In his sentencing order, Smith wrote that at no point since Bohannon’s arrest has there been “a satisfactory explanation of the action of the defendant and the raw rage exhibited when he took two lives.” Bohannon did not testify on his own behalf during the trial.

“I can’t even tell you how I deal with it,” said Jerry Duboise Sr., the victim’s father, after Smith pronounced sentence. “He didn’t deserve to get killed.”

After they heard the sentence, Bohannon’s family continued to maintain he is innocent of murder in the deaths of Harvey and Duboise Jr.

“He’s a good guy,” said Darrin Bohannon, the defendant’s brother.” Just because he had to take two lives to save his own, I’m sure there’s a lot more people would have done it.

“You feel like you need revenge but there ain’t nothing you can do about it but go through the court system.”

Lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips, said Thursday’s sentencing was the end of a “long journey for these families.”

“They have been very faithful and very patient,” she said. “We feel like absolutely the right result was achieved by the jury’s verdict.”

In considering whether to sentence Bohannon to death, or life in prison without parole, Smith indicated several factors that came into play during the sentencing investigation. Two factors given weight in the defendant’s favor were his lack of “any significant criminal history” and the fact that several character witnesses – including two retired police officers and Bohannon’s teenage stepson – characterized him as a good person and worker.

And while these were considered, Smith wrote that he “does not disagree with the jury’s determination,” which was in favor of the death penalty by an 11-1 vote.